Dog–human Physiological Synchrony

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Seven decades of research show that people’s bodies often become coordinated during social interaction. This phenomenon, known as physiological synchrony, refers to meaningful coordination across physiological signals such as heart rate, heart-rate variability, breathing, or skin conductance. Synchrony has been studied in romantic partners, parents and children, therapists and clients, teammates, strangers, and people working together. Depending on the context, it may reflect shared attention, emotional connection, cooperation, stress transmission, or co-regulation.

There is now growing interest in whether similar coordination occurs between humans and animals, especially dogs. Dogs are highly attuned to human behaviour, emotion, and routine, and many dog-human relationships involve close daily contact. Recent work suggests that dogs and owners can show linked physiological patterns during interaction, as well as related stress levels over longer periods.1,2 This raises an exciting possibility: dog-human synchrony may offer a new way to understand how dogs and humans respond to one another, particularly in relationships where the dog has a working, support, or caregiving role.

In this project, we want to understand what useful information can be gained from dog-human physiological synchrony. The first step is to show that these signals can be measured reliably in dogs. We have custom equipment ordered from a company started by one of Prof. Adler’s former students, and animal-care committee and human research ethics approvals ave already in place for the dog-measurement portion of the work. We will focus on collecting stable, usable data in a way that is safe, comfortable, and feasible for dogs and handlers.

After this measurement phase, we will begin controlled experiments. These studies will use well-established computer-based tasks to vary the human participant’s stress level while measuring both human and dog physiology. This will allow us to test whether dog-human synchrony occurs reliably, whether it changes under stress, whether it depends on the dog-human relationship, and whether some dogs are especially responsive to human stress.

Another planned test is to use the natural stress of exams. Students research participants will be invited to write their regular midterm or final exam in our lab (at the scheduled time). They will have a dog resting at their feet, and both they and the dog will be wearing sensors from which we will measure stress levels in both over the course of the exam. We anticipate that dogs will be sensitive to the owners exam-induced stress levels and we will be able to measure and observe this stress transmission.

Longer term, we hope to move from basic measurement and controlled experiments toward the dog-human relationships of direct interest to this project. Synchrony may help us understand when dogs are absorbing human stress, when they are helping humans regulate stress, when a partnership is functioning well, or when a dog may be experiencing strain. This could eventually be useful for research on service dogs, therapy dogs, working dogs, companion animals, and animal-assisted interventions.

Leads:  Chad M. Danyluck, PhD, Department of Psychology, Carleton University & Andy Adler, PhD, Systems & Computer Engineering, Carleton University